Free Republic

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Defense attorneys representing six Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray filed a motion Friday to have the case dismissed, or for the city’s top prosecutor to be recused from the case and replaced by a special prosecutor, citing alleged conflict of interest. The attorneys argue in the documents that the officers were victims of an 'overzealous prosecution' by State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who they claim has personal and political motivations in the case. Among the alleged conflicts of interest cited, the motion includes Mosby's marriage to the city councilman who represents the district where Gray died.

He was the first African-American man to play integrated baseball, taking the field at slouching old Delormier Downs on Ontario Street for the Montreal Royals’ first homestand. If the American sporting world regarded — and, in some ways, still regards — Canada as an ice hockey backwater, that week it became a beacon for black athletes dreaming of making the major leagues. Suddenly, Jackie Robinson was playing among white men for the blue-crested Royals; in Canada; in a place called Quebec. The city was the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers’ minor league, AAA team. It was also a wildly open...

GREENVILLE, S.C. — The Republican dog and pony show hits Upstate South Carolina on Saturday as nearly a dozen presidential hopefuls pitch conservative activists during a forum on economic freedom. The Palmetto State hosts the third nominating contest of the 2016 presidential primary and first in the Republican-dominated South. That makes South Carolina a critical battleground in the race for the GOP nomination, even though the state's streak of picking the party's presidential nominee was broken three years ago. Upstate South Carolina is considered the conservative bastion of this decidedly red state. Scott Ramsey, a 47-year-old Republican voter from Spartanburg...

China’s military plans to produce nearly 42,000 land-based and sea-based unmanned weapons and sensor platforms as part of its continuing, large-scale military buildup, the Pentagon’s annual report on the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) disclosed Friday. http://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-preparing-for-drone-warfare/ Good article, as are most of what Gertz writes.

In his Mother’s Day speech last month, Tajikistan's President Emomali Rahmon criticized women who wear “foreign” clothing, especially the black veils associated with conservative Islam. Within days, officials began threatening shopkeepers who sell hijab, the Islamic head covering for women; a few days later state television reported that sex workers are using hijab to drive up their prices. “Since ancient times our people have had beautiful women’s dresses, our girls have never worn black clothes. Traditionally, black clothes are not welcome,” Rahmon told mothers ahead of Mother’s Day, which has replaced International Women’s Day in Tajikistan and is marked on...

Tajikistan is debating legislation to ban Arabic names as part of an ongoing campaign against Islam that has seen men being forced to shave their beards and women in hijab being labelled prostitutes. The president, Emomali Rahmon, ordered his rubber-stamp parliament to consider a bill that would forbid the registration of names considered too Arabic, an official in the Justice Ministry’s department of civil registry told Interfax. “After the adoption of these regulations, the registry offices will not register names that are incorrect or alien to the local culture, including names denoting objects, flora and fauna, as well as names...

According to candy maker Mars, sugar labeling on people’s favorite food snacks like M&M’s is necessary since people need to be told that candy is not a diet. While that seems like an obvious statement to make, Mars is very serious about the issue and there is also good reason to have sugar labeling on all foods, not just candy.

Target: Scott Walker, Wisconsin Governor Petition:Following the horrible example set last month in Florida, a state public lands agency in Wisconsin has instructed their employees to no longer discuss global warming. Global warming is the largest challenge that land managers are currently facing, but apparently, the Wisconsin Board of Commissioners of Public Lands (BCPL) thinks if they don't say it, it won't happen??!? The BCPL manages revenue from federal lands within the state to the benefit of schools and communities. This decision makes no sense, given that much of their revenue comes from national forests, and forests are already suffering...

Forget Vince Cable. Forget, if you can, Ed Balls (and I know that’s hard, because what a joyous result that was). Expel from your mind the image of Nick Clegg crying into his cornflakes this morning while texting his old pals in the Euro-oligarchy to see if they will give him a new plush job that involves no contact with pesky plebs. For last night there was an even bigger loser than those guys. Russell Brand. Or ‘Rusty Rockets’, as his politics-packed Twitterfeed has it. Rusty being the operative word, for now we know that the much-hyped ability of slebs...

Spokesmen for the New Black Panther Party called for actions designed to "put the hurt on white people" as a means for "addressing centuries of oppression of Black folks." Former national chairman of the New Black Panther Party and current national president of Black Lawyers for Justice, Malik Zulu Shabazz, urged Baltimore rioters to "strike back in self-defense against the police. The Mayor invited the victims of oppression to take revenge and reparations against the society that has harmed them. Those who stand in the way have no one to blame but themselves if they get hurt." New Black Panther...

Ten years ago, an especially strong and destructive hurricane season brought Katrina to Louisiana in August, followed two months later by Wilma slamming into the Florida coast. And then, for the next 10 years, nothing: no major hurricanes have hit the United States since. As the US approaches another hurricane season beginning on 1 June, it will also be approaching a historic milestone: there have been no category 3 or above hurricanes in nearly a decade, a stroke of luck that scientists say is truly out of the ordinary.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah is on the verge of launching an offensive against Syrian rebel groups in the mountainous Qalamoun region straddling the Syria-Lebanon border, north of Damascus. But what was once seen as a relatively minor engagement in the broader Syrian conflict has taken on new significance. After military setbacks in the north and south of the country in the past six weeks, the regime of President Bashar al-Assad is desperate for a victory and is depending on his Shia Hezbollah allies to deliver it. Assad and his Iranian and Hezbollah allies badly need to defeat — and to be seen...

s David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, heads into a second term as British prime minister after a truly remarkable election, he keeps being compared to another world leader: Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu. To some ears, that's not an entirely positive comparison, and it's certainly not an obvious one. Cameron, just reelected leader of a European nation and uncontroversial U.S. ally with a majority in Parliament, thanks in part to Britain's first-past-the-post electoral system. It will be Cameron's second term and, thanks to term limits, almost certainly his last. Meanwhile, Netanyahu was elected to his fourth term as leader of...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mayor Bill de Blasio said New Yorkers don't appreciate his "very special" accomplishments since he took office in January 2014, and criticized the actions of his predecessors and even President Barack Obama, according to a Rolling Stone interview. De Blasio, who has fulfilled a campaign promise to establish universal pre-Kindergarten education and is pressing forward with other reform programs, was quoted as saying out-of-towners see his administration' more clearly than his own constituents.

Enjoy it while you can, Baltimore. The riots haven’t ended, they’ve merely been postponed.We are told that things are getting back to normal in Baltimore. This is not an unmixed blessing. Yes, the rioters have put down their bricks, their Molotov cocktails, and all their many other implements of destruction (at least for the time being), and when one compares the present state of the city to the chaos seen last week, one can say things have improved. But after the great collective sigh of relief goes out, Baltimoreans must now reckon with the meaning of the word “normal” as...

The former Arkansas governor understands something important about GOP voters: They aren’t opposed to welfare spending as long as it’s for them.For his opening pitch to Republican voters, Mike Huckabee channeled a little of Elizabeth Warren’s fiery populism. Washington, he said in his video announcement, “has done enough lying and stealing. I’ll never rob seniors of what our government has promised them and even forced them to pay for.” He hit this note again in his first campaign speech, with a few shots at his GOP competitors for good measure. “There are some who propose that to save the safety...

Air Recognition learned some of the contract details signed between missiles manufacturer MBDA and the Qatar Emirate. According to an industry source who wished to remain unnamed, this contract includes the full range of Rafale weapons available for export: Exocet AM 39 Block II, SCALP, AASM, MICA IR, MICA EM and Meteor missiles. Air Recognition understands this order would be the largest export contract ever signed by MBDA. An AM39 Exocet Anti-ship missile fitted on a Rafale center fuselage pylon (along with 6x MICA missiles and 2 external fuel tanks) ( Picture: MBDA) In addition to the 24 Rafale fighter...

Sally Kohn is a hard left pundit on MSNBC. She took to Twitter yesterday to give a shout-out to a D.C. MTA cop for saving her when she forgot her wallet and couldn’t pay for the subway. But she also couldn’t help but impute political and racial motives for the gesture: Forgot my wallet. MTA officer let me on subway for free. #classprivilege #whiteprivilege It was the hashtags on her post that got her taken to the Twitter woodshed. She assumed she’d received the favor because of her race and class. Followers let her have it: -snip- Recently, Kohn gave...

Washington: The median income of Indian-Americans, which is the richest ethnic community in the US, in the year 2013 was $100,547, Census Bureau said in its latest report. The figure is almost double the national median income and significantly more than even white, non-Hispanic Americans whose median income is approximately $57,000. In its latest report, the US Census Bureau said Indian Americans are the third largest Asian community in the United States after Chinese and Filipinos. The Chinese (except Taiwanese) population was the largest Asian group, followed by Filipinos (3.6 million), Indian American (3.5 million), Vietnamese (1.9 million), Koreans (1.8...